Hidden IoT devices are increasingly being used to snoop on users in hotel rooms or AirBnBs. We envision empowering users entering such unfamiliar environments to identify and locate (e.g., hidden camera behind plants) diverse hidden devices (e.g., cameras, microphones, speakers) using only their personal handhelds.
Imagine a user walking into an unfamiliar environment such as a hotel room or Airbnb. Nowadays, the user has to be wary of wireless Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices being used to spy on them. These devices could be installed by the owner or by a previous guest. This threat is not just hypothetical...
...we want to empower users so that as they enter an unfamiliar space, they can run an app on their personal handheld (e.g., phone or tablet). This app would report a list of detected and identified devices and their corresponding locations.
“Detect,” here, means knowing that there is some device (i.e., binary notification), “identify” entails knowing what type of device it is (e.g., type=camera), and “localize” entails knowing the device’s location in the physical space (e.g., behind the plants). While cameras in particular are imminent privacy threats, in general we want to detect/identify and localize diverse hidden IoT devices, as these could also be potential threats for tracking users. more
